


Sledding Is Tiring

by 3amepiphany



Series: Drabbles 'n Bits [13]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 20:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11813337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3amepiphany/pseuds/3amepiphany
Summary: “Put a sweater on.”John didn’t look up from the video game he was playing. “No.”





	Sledding Is Tiring

**Author's Note:**

> I think this is a dreambubble. IDK.
> 
> http://billetdouxnondistribue.tumblr.com/post/40126827845/sledding-is-tiring

“Put a sweater on.”

John didn’t look up from the video game he was playing. “No.”

“Egbert, put a sweater on. And some gloves. And like a jacket and scarf and hat. You’re gonna need them all because it’s fucking cold outside and we’re going outside. You remember what outside is, right?”

“I remember that it’s snowing, and has been for the last couple of days. And that it’s stupid cold out.” He mashed another combination of buttons, effectively winning the bout he was fighting on the screen, and finally gave Dave his full attention once the battle points were tallied. “Why am I putting on a sweater if I don’t plan on going outside into the snow? I don’t want to go sledding. Fuck sledding. Sledding is tiring.” Dave had already disappeared back into the kitchen though, and said nothing in return. John pulled up the pause menu on the game and rolled down to the floor on his back, stretching out his arms and legs, and almost knocking over his glass of water. Fumbling with it for a moment and pushing it aside, he called out again. “Why is this going to be a thing? This sweater thing?”

“The gloves and jacket and scarf and hat thing?”

“On top of the sweater thing, yes.”

Out of the kitchen came Dave, very carefully holding a pot of steaming, roiling water in his gloved hands. He already had on his own sweater, scarf, and hat.

None of it matched, and John told him so again for the nth time in as many days. “You look like you fell into the seasonal sale bin at the Burlington Coat Factory.”

“Yes, well, now is the winter of our discount tent, and I bought that shit, too. We’re going outside, I told you. Hurry up , this isn’t going to stay as hot as I need it to be for much longer.”

From his vantage point, John only grimaced. Dave looked unmoved.

“This water’s boiling. It’s nine degrees outside. We’re doing this. Making it happen. Hurry your ass up because as soon as I am outside this shit is going flying.”

“Okay. I still don’t want to go sledding though.”

“We’re not fucking going sledding. I can think of a few better things to do right now than going sledding,” Dave said, heading for the door.

“Like what?” John sat up, putting his controller aside and again nearly knocking over his water glass.

“Get your shit together and come find out, holy damn, Egbert. I’m putting this back on the stove until you’re ready.”

Outside was indeed, fucking cold. It was also already getting dark, too; the sky was a brilliant fiery orange and yellow, edged dramatically by dark, navy blue and then the black of night, and the moon peered out over the tops of the trees, just waiting for the sun to set fully before it was ready to shine on its own. At the shadows along the end of the yard, where the trees met the clearing, the snow was already blue and grey.

John found himself happy that it was soft and not iced over and hard, once he stepped out into the yard and sank with each step. It was still sort of snowing, so he looked up and of course opened his mouth to try and catch a few snowflakes. There weren’t many, and he knew he looked ridiculous.

He could also feel Dave watching him, so he stopped after a minute.

The pot Dave was holding had stopped its obviously-boiling bubbling madness and was now giving off a fairly large column of steamy fog. “Are you ready for this shit?”

John nodded, still unsure of what was happening with this. It seemed dangerous.

“Alright so the glasses say it’s about eight degrees out now. This is happening. Watch, this will make you lose your shit.” And with a quick heave, Dave directed the pot towards the back of the yard and the trees, and the boiling water that flew out of it exploded into billowing clouds of white fluffy frost.

“WOAH!”

“Dude, yes,” the knight hissed excitedly, “did you see that? Tell me you saw that.”

“That was great! What the hell, when did it ever snow in Texas for you to know how to do this?”

He shrugged. “It didn’t. I learned it from Rose. This next one I just came up with,” Dave said before turning and bending a bit, and then launching back up at John, a lump of snow flying straight out of the pot he had scooped it up and thrown it with, a stream of steam trailing behind it.

John reacted quickly, ducking out of the way as best as he could in three layers of clothing, but his shoes squeaked and slipped and he fell flat on his back as the snow clump shot straight overhead.

“Good job, John.”

“Fuck you, man, there’s snow down the back of my jacket and sweater now.”

Dave came over to help him up, and was met with a wet smack of snow to the chest. He stared down at John from the underneath his shades, and then turned on his heel quickly and headed for the other side of the yard, bending and dragging the pot along as he went. John sat up quickly and with a grin plastered across his face. He adjusted his hat and his glasses, then kicked, loosened, and grabbed a couple of fistfuls of snow, and packed them together. He pulled his arm back to fire the snowball at Dave, but held off for just a moment as the other teen fired the pot at him again like some sort of lacrosse jock.

He put his free hand out and pushed at the air, and moments before the giant mass was to hit him it exploded much like the hot water into a flurried burst, and as it fell around and to his sides, he could see Dave watching, his breath creating slate-colored clouds. John exhaled heavily too, watching his own breath freeze up in the stupid cold air. And then without warning he chucked the snowball, giving it a sharp, winded push as he did. Dave hit it away with the pan, and John swear he heard him laugh.

He grabbed some more snow, shrugged to adjust his jacket, and jumped up into the sky. Down below Dave scrambled to fill the pot again with more ammo. “Cheating!” John only laughed. He carefully dropped his own weaponry and it hit Dave on the shoulder just as he was mid-swing the pot around for another shot. Off balance, he slid and slipped just as John had, and wound up on his back in the snow too.

“Ugh,” he said, not bothering to sit up. John landed next to him carefully. “There’s snow in my pants.”

“You were the one that wanted to come outside.”

“Sure, but I wasn’t planning on geting snow down my pants. Help me up?”

The heir dropped down again into the snow opposite Dave, and started wiggling his arms and legs.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Snow angel.” He lay there, done, watching his own breath and then laughing to himself when he could hear Dave making a snow angel of his own with a sigh. They both stayed there for a moment, John watching the few sparse snowflakes falling in from the almost completely darkened sky, unsure at first which white specks in his vision were those or stars until they started landing on his glasses.

“My pants are also getting wet and cold.”

“Again, man, you were the one who wanted to come out here.”

“Help me up, Egbert.”

Finally John brought himself up and out of the snow without much effort, dusting the loose snow off of his legs and sleeves before twisting around and putting his hands down to meet Dave’s as he reached them up. As he gently lifted him up and off of the ground, wiggling, he looked down at the pair of angels in the snow, their bottom edges almost touching. He put Dave on the ground and then came down himself, and as they stood there dusting themselves off and huffing and blowing out little clouds with each breath and shaking, they wordlessly agreed that it was time to head back inside, grabbing the pot as they stumbled through the snow.

They left their shoes just inside the doorway for the moment and hung their coats up and shook even more snow from their sweaters and scarves. It was so much warmer inside and as Dave shucked off his wet socks he turned the thermostat up, and John brought their shoes over to the vent on the furnace to dry. He started pulling off more clothes as he headed down the hallway to the bathroom to hang them up over the shower curtain pole when he heard Dave calling for him from the bedroom. “What is this thing that is happening now?” He asked when Dave came out, already in his pajamas, with armfuls of the extra bedsheets and a comforter.

“Grab the pillows.”

“Alright.” So he did, and when he came back out he found the other boy fiddling with his laptop until music started up. The pile of blankets he’d put on the couch were soon joined by the pillows, and it took some small prompting from Dave to get John started on the obvious - making a fort there in the living room. Once it was underway, he disappeared into the kitchen and started banging and clanging around in there. At one point he could hear the loud, hollow sound of a can of whipped cream going off clearly into Dave’s own mouth instead of onto whatever he was making.

He didn’t come back out until John was almost finished, and he came armed with dinner: two pairs of mugs and a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches.

John patted some of the pillows he’d stolen off of the couch and when Dave set down the tray he flopped down onto them and onto John, who laughed.

“Check to make sure I didn’t cover your tomato soup with the whipped cream.”

John eyed his mug of hot chocolate carefully before testing it and proclaiming it to not be soup. They dug in quietly, and when they finished John got up to clear the dishes away and make them some more cocoa, and to look for some pajama pants.

“The thing I hate about sledding is that it’s just way too tiring,” started Dave, lounging under a mound of the comforter and sitting up to take his refilled mug from John as he came crawling back into the tent. John took a moment to settle in next to him as he continued. “It’s just wet and miserable. You’re sweating under all those layers of your clothes from the adrenaline of the actual sledding and the excruciating work of hauling your self and your sled back up the damn hill you just rocketed down. By the third time your legs are already begging you to quit.”

“Agreed, though I’m sure you weren’t sledding down a snow-covered hill - did Bro take you out to the sand dunes or whatever it is you guys have out there in the middle of nowhere?”

“Some cities try to make their own snow playgrounds in the winter you know.”

John made a face. “What? That sounds so stupid.”

“It is. But Bro didn’t take me, we went on a school field trip. Worst fucking birthday ever. I quit after the second time I went down the hill. Some kid broke his arm that day. There was almost just as much mud as snow and we didn’t need jackets.”

“…So you’ve never actually done any real sledding.” He looked at Dave, and Dave shook his head. “You know what makes sledding suck but you’ve never actually been sledding.” Dave shook his head again, now quiet at being called out on his terribly terrible sledding experience that wasn’t really qualified to be called sledding at all. “Man I don’t even know how you feel like you’re an authority on that. But no, man. Of course sledding is tiring, I said that myself like an hour ago. I’m getting tired just thinking about it.”

“Me too.”

“So we’ll do it tomorrow,” John said with some finality, and before Dave could protest, John smushed himself right up against him and said quietly, “That’s if you’re not gonna be too tired after tonight.”

“I thought you didn’t want to go sledding? Fuck sledding? If just thinking about it is–”

“I’ve already stopped thinking about sledding, Dave,” he said, very seriously, worming an arm around him. He searched for Dave’s feet with his own under the blanket, and when he found them Dave tilted his head to give John a kiss.

When they pulled away from each other, Dave replied, “Okay… no guarantees on it, in that case. I won’t be too sad if it doesn’t happen. I might be pretty worn out.”

“That’s fine by me. I might be too tired tomorrow, too.”


End file.
